Light-induced switching between singlet and triplet superconducting states

Abstract

While the search for topological triplet-pairing superconductivity has remained a challenge, recent developments in optically stabilizing metastable superconducting states suggest a new route to realizing this elusive phase. Here, we devise a testable theory of competing superconducting orders that permits ultrafast switching to an opposite-parity superconducting phase in centrosymmetric crystals with strong spin-orbit coupling. Using both microscopic and phenomenological models, we show that dynamical inversion symmetry breaking with a tailored light pulse can induce odd-parity (spin triplet) order parameter oscillations in a conventional even-parity (spin singlet) superconductor, which when driven strongly can send the system to a competing minimum in its free energy landscape. Our results provide new guiding principles for engineering unconventional electronic phases using light, suggesting a fundamentally non-equilibrium route toward realizing topological superconductivity.

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Photo-induced nonequilibrium states in Mott insulators
• Floquet engineering triplet superconductivity in superconductors with spin-orbit coupling or altermagnetism
• Nonthermal order by disorder
• Floquet engineering of effective pairing interactions in a doped band insulator
• Fate of transient order parameter domain walls in ultrafast experiments
• Light Control of Triplet Pairing in Correlated Electrons with Mixed-Sign Interactions
• Orbital magnetization reveals multiband topology
• Probing the Quantum Geometry of Correlated Metals using Optical Conductivity